encroachment on the rights and privileges of the people. He
particularly distinguished himself by his hostility to the Villele
administration; himself supporting almost singly the whole burden of
the opposition to the famous budget of Villele, which he disputed,
item by item, with talent and perseverance worthy of entering the
lists with the distinguished financier to whom he was opposed. When
M. de Polignac became President of the Council, the opposition of M.
Perier assumed a more violent character, and he was pre-eminent
among the 221 deputies who voted the address which led to the fatal
ordonnances of July. When the revolution broke out, he at once avowed
himself the advocate of the popular cause, and opened his house as the
place of meeting of the deputies, who assembled to protest against the
illegality of the proceedings of the Crown. Firmly, however, attached
to the principles of constitutional opposition, and shrinking,
therefore, from the probable effects of a revolution, he was one of
the last to abandon the hope that his infatuated sovereign would open
his eyes to the gulf on the brink of which he was standing, and by a
timely revocation of the ordonnances, prevent the necessity of the
extreme measure of an appeal to arms, and a consequent change of
dynasty. When these became inevitable, M. Perier attached himself
firmly to the work of consolidating the new throne of Louis Philippe,
and reassembling those elements of order and stability which the
convulsion of July had scattered, but not annihilated. On the
dissolution of the ministry of M. Lafitte, M. Casimir Perier was
called to the head of the government, and immediately entered into the
system of conservative policy, which he continued until the close of
his career. The last time he took any important part in the debates
of the Chamber of Deputies was on the 20th of March, when he made an
ingenious defence of the conduct of government with respect to the
events of Grenoble. His last appearance in the Chamber was on the 29th